Truly, he is off his rocker

Leaks from the private fundraiser Trump just held in Missouri:

“Trudeau came to see me. He’s a good guy, Justin. He said, ‘No, no, we have no trade deficit with you, we have none. Donald, please,’ ” Trump said, mimicking Trudeau, according to audio of the private event in Missouri obtained by The Washington Post. “Nice guy, good-looking guy, comes in — ‘Donald, we have no trade deficit.’ He’s very proud because everybody else, you know, we’re getting killed.

“... So, he’s proud. I said, ‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know. ... I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’ You know why? Because we’re so stupid. … And I thought they were smart. I said, ‘You’re wrong, Justin.’ He said, ‘Nope, we have no trade deficit.’ I said, ‘Well, in that case, I feel differently,’ I said, ‘but I don’t believe it.’ I sent one of our guys out, his guy, my guy, they went out, I said, ‘Check, because I can’t believe it.’

‘Well, sir, you’re actually right. We have no deficit, but that doesn’t include energy and timber. … And when you do, we lose $17 billion a year.’ It’s incredible.”

  WaPo

So that's the indecipherable word salad reported by WaPo that led to the indecipherable tweet:



The one thing both tell us is that he has no fucking idea what he's talking about.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative says the United States has a trade surplus with Canada. It reports that in 2016, the United States exported $12.5 billion more in goods and services than it imported from Canada, leading to a trade surplus, not a deficit.

[...]

In his 30-minute speech to donors in Missouri, Trump made a blistering attack against major U.S. allies and global economies, accusing the European Union, China, Japan and South Korea of ripping off the United States for decades and pillaging the U.S. workforce. He also described the North American Free Trade Agreement as a disaster and heaped blame on the World Trade Organization for allowing other countries to box in the United States on trade.

Only 30 minutes?

Trump seemed to threaten to pull U.S. troops stationed in South Korea if he didn’t get what he wanted on trade with Seoul, an ally. He said that the country had gotten rich but that U.S. politicians never negotiated better deals. “We have a very big trade deficit with them, and we protect them,” Trump said. “We lose money on trade, and we lose money on the military. We have right now 32,000 soldiers on the border between North and South Korea. Let’s see what happens.”

[...]

Trump said countries can request exemptions from these tariffs but only after direct negotiations with him. The audio from the fundraiser shows how difficult these discussions could prove.

No shit. I wonder how language translators are going to present what he says.

The president was in Missouri to raise money for Josh Hawley, who is taking on Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) in November's midterm election. He called McCaskill “bad for Missouri and bad for the country.” But he barely spoke about Hawley. Instead, he talked about himself.

What a surprise.

Trump spoke as his White House tried to pick up the pieces after Democrats' apparent victory in a special election in a western Pennsylvania congressional district that Trump won by 20 points in 2016. Pollsters said the results showed how Trump was dragging down the Republican Party, but the president took none of the blame. He said the Republican candidate, Rick Saccone, would have lost by a wider margin without his support — Trump held a rally for Saccone over the weekend. And he said the Democrat, Conor Lamb, won the seat because he was “like Trump” but that Lamb would vote with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Somebody needs to adjust his meds.

"It's called the bowling ball test; do you know what that is? That's where they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and they drop it on the hood of the car," Trump said of Japan. "And if the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify. Well, guess what, the roof dented a little bit, and they said, nope, this car doesn't qualify. It's horrible, the way we're treated. It's horrible." It was unclear what he was talking about.

[...]

“Do me a favor: Don’t call it tax reform. It hasn’t worked in 45 years,” Trump said he told others. “You say you’re reforming taxes, that means taxes could go up.”

“I actually said, ‘Let’s call it the Tax Cut Cut Cut plan,’ ” Trump said. “I actually did.”

He added: “They thought it sounded a little hokey, so we called it the tax cut and jobs plan. I liked the first one better.”

Crackers.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.